


The Lines He Painted in Red Ink

by skywriter123



Category: Cabin Pressure
Genre: Doctor Who References, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, I'll probably fix it, Martin Whump, Martin's been through a lot, Suicidal Thoughts, adding tags as I go, it's a bit cliched, possibly homosexual Martin Crieff, prompted, tw suicide
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-10-11
Updated: 2013-10-11
Packaged: 2017-12-29 03:15:14
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,087
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1000217
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/skywriter123/pseuds/skywriter123
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Story for this prompt: http://cabinpres-fic.dreamwidth.org/6034.html?thread=10337426#cmt10337426 on the kink meme. Martin has a notebook he writes all his "failures" down in and will kill himself when he fills it. He's on the last page.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Lines He Painted in Red Ink

**Author's Note:**

> Okay, this is a fill for a prompt. This will be on the back burner a bit, but I wanted it up there

Chapter 1  
The "book", as Martin would offhandedly refer to it in his thoughts, was simple looking enough. Nothing ornate to attract attention, nothing but a blank TARDIS blue cover (upon receiving it, that was the immediate thought). He'd gotten it as a birthday gift from one of his aunts when he was fifteen.  
Martin, being a fifteen year old boy, had gratefully accepted it and then promptly ignored it, leaving to gather dust once it migrated from his desk to underneath his bed in a manner of months. Martin's room was organized chaos, and, if his mother hadn't forced him to clean it upon inspection about three months after his birthday that the notebook had resurfaced. A lot had changed in those three months, though Martin didn't spare the book a thought as he went on with cleaning his bedroom, tossing it onto his desk after wiping the dust off with a slight grimace.

The past three months had been wearisome for the lanky teenager. As school progressed, Martin had continued to do his less-than stellar performance, hidden in the shadow of the accolades bestowed upon his elder brother, Simon and sister, Caitlin. They had never paid much attention to Martin and his mess-ups. None of the family had. Sure, he was hugged and told bedtime stories when he was younger, but once the little-boy coddling had finished, his parents had always been so busy; Working hours on end, having to drive Simon to his latest football match or Caitlin to her horse-back riding lessons at a stable a good hour and a half away from home. Martin had never quite picked up sports or hobbies of any kind. His one hobby, his one true passion was planes. And he was mercilessly mocked for it.

Martin, gingery haired Martin Crieff, was bullied and tormented for wanting to be a pilot. The boys at his school laughed at him when they saw the ragged flight manuals he'd managed to find, teased when his stories for English class always included flying. It wasn't the fact that Martin wanted to be a pilot that gave these cruel thugs their ammunition, no, it was just... how Martin was.

Much like he is a whole eighteen years later, at age fifteen, Martin was a stuttering, slightly pedantic ginger with a freckled complexion and self-esteem the size of a pea. It was hard not to be this way. Simon was well-liked in his year, and lead forward of the high school's football team. He never had to work up the courage to ask one of the pretty girls on a date. In fact, the popular girls practically flung themselves at them. Simon lacked the freckles, the stature, and the stutter that impeded Martin and was instead blessed with coordination, intelligence, and fairly good looks courtesy of their mother.  
Martin was more an awkward mixture, with high cheekbones and fairly short height from his mother, but a flaming red head and freckles from his father. He was assured that his acne would vanish and he'd grow but it wasn't all that much of a comfort.  
Caitlin was the near mirror image of their mother with an almost dainty look about her. She seemed to effortlessly glide through schoolwork and had extremely good luck, just the opposite of her little brother.

Martin's torments reached further than just him being over-shadowed by his brother and sister. His self-esteem was incredibly low (almost non-existent) and he was socially awkward. All he could talk about was planes, it seemed and in the small town of Wokingham, there wasn't many aeroplane enthusiasts. Martin was alone in this, and it was greatly disheartening.

Martin lay awake each night during those lonely teenage years (and many more afterwards) his racing mind flashing back and showing him his mistakes. All of his embarrassments, the moments he never wanted to relive were brought to the forefront of his mind. It wasn't something he controlled; Martin hated how his subconscious seemed to torture him even more.

As the torture from his bullies and his inner demons continued, Martin kept dreaming of flying. But, instead of flying to be free, to enjoy the rush of the wind and of the speed, he dreamed of flying away. To escape this wretched place he was trapped in.

During one of these daydreams, Martin was lying on his back on his bed, staring blankly at the ceiling.  
A thud from upstairs drove him from his thoughts and he glanced at his watch, the one he'd set to 24 hour clock, like real pilots did. Swearing, he got up slowly from the bed and stumbled over to his desk, deciding he couldn't put off homework anymore, no matter how much he hated it. The work was difficult and Martin got frustrated to the point of tears as he stared at his maths textbook. Standing up to get a glass of water before trooping onwards, he stumbled and knocked a notebook from the very corner of the desk. It fell to the carpet along with the sheaf of papers it'd been buried by. He picked it up and flipped through it absentmindedly, rubbing a slender finger along it's spine. He put it on top of the textbook, covering up those wretched numbers for the time being.  
The notebook looked inviting, with its creamy white pages unmarked except for the uniform black lines spanning across each page. For some reason, Martin had always liked the look of a blank notebook. So many possibilities...

Recalling why he had originally stood, Martin exited his bedroom in search of the water and maybe some crisps. He had gone straight to his little room after school, tears streaming down his face. The boys from school had gotten to him, the whole god-damned football team. Simon included. Sure, the teasing happened between classes, but this time they had cornered him after the final bell rang.  
 _Shirt-lifter,_ they called him. _Pouf. Fairy. Flaming queer._ And since such a shirt-lifting, queer poofter fairy had been in their locker room, he'd have to be punished. Naturally.

Martin was used to the taunts and even the punches but they had spit on him as he'd curled at their feet, protecting vital organs once he was down. He still couldn't believe it! They spat on him like he was as worthless as the muddy ground he lay on. And, as the fog of dark clouds rolled into Martin's mind, he was beginning to think that they just might be right.

**Author's Note:**

> Comment, kudos, signal from above using morse code, tell me how you thought it was. I feel like it's very cliched but I'm planning on fixing it up once I've more free time.


End file.
